


Five Times Rosa Diaz Stopped Looking For Something (And One Time She Found It)

by MCMXCV



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: And I'm sorry the dianetti is so mild I didn't want this to drag on forever, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Or at least all my faves do, This really isn't all that angsty, Written Pre-Season 5, all ya faves have honorable mentions, but I tried ok it's like 1am cut me some slack, i neglected so many things to get this out of my system, its really a character study, just kidding I'm sorry please still give me attention, so if yours didn't sorry u have terrible taste, using made up backstory that I made up, you know like a liar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 03:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11615334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MCMXCV/pseuds/MCMXCV
Summary: Or: Five Times Rosa Got Hurt And One Time Someone Picked Up The Pieces





	Five Times Rosa Diaz Stopped Looking For Something (And One Time She Found It)

 

I. When she was nine she stopped looking for friends at school. Making friends had always been hard for Rosa, she was quiet and shy and the other kids always seemed to think that her silence meant she was too stuck-up to talk to them. And after the... incident last year, things had gone from bad to worse. No one wanted to be her friend.

 

Her mother had been nagging her for a week to send out invitations to her party. Rosa was too embarrassed to tell her that she was sure no one would come, so she told her mom that she was too old for birthday parties. When the older woman's face crumpled into something like heartbreak, Rosa bolted. She wasn't supposed to cross the road by herself, so when she got to the street corner she turned left, and left again, and again, until the math finally added up and she stopped in the same place she'd started. Typical.

 

On the other side of the street was the pizza shop her dad sometimes took her to after school. She had enough loose change in her pocket for a soda, and the temptation proved to be too great. The next thing she knew she was stepping off the curb. Eyes glued to the storefront just starting to glow neon in the early stages of dusk, she forgot to look both ways. In fact, she forgot to look any way except forward, and then suddenly upward when she abruptly found herself staring at the sky.

 

Once the shock passed and she realized she was okay, she gave a good glare to the cyclist who had hit her and stomped in the direction of home. She struggled to pull the sleeves of her sweatshirt down over her scraped hands. Knowing she was about to be berated for being out alone after dark was enough, she didn't need her mom all worked up over some dumb road rash. And maybe she didn't want to see that heartbroken look on her mothers face ever, ever again.

 

 

 

II. When she was fifteen she stopped looking for approval from adults in her life. Ballet was everything she needed. Rosa Diaz did not need friends. She did not need to be invited places. She definitely did not need some stupid dance instructor's praise. Her posture was fucking fine. Rosa wasn't an idiot. She knew Ms. Miriam was harder on her than the other girls because she refused to suck up to her, but Rosa also knew that she was the best dancer in the class. Before she'd gotten into the academy, her instructors had always told her that she was gifted because she danced with her heart. Or some dumb shit like that. Who cares.

 

So when it was announced that Olivia Miller got the lead in the showcase for the third year in a row, Rosa was fuming. She was such a fucking shoe licker and Miriam ate it up. She was too proud to confront the old hag though, so she settled for giving Olivia a black eye. Or at least, that was the plan.

 

What actually happened was a full-on brawl in Studio A. Rosa had been expecting to yell some things and punch her nemesis, but as it turns out ballerinas are very strong and have very good reflexes. And while Rosa had virtually no friends (Rob the janitor did not count), Olivia was the most popular girl in their year. So what started as a punch to the face quickly turned into a wrestling match on the floor, which turned into four girls crying and bleeding from various places while Rosa screamed obscenities as she was dragged from the practice studio.

 

When questioned about the incident, Rosa refused to explain why she'd started the fight. Olivia and her friends all said she was crazy and should be locked up, and maybe they were right. She had, after all, fought off four girls and won with nothing more than a couple of stitches in her eyebrow from smacking her face on the barre when one of them had grabbed her by the ankle. The worst part was that she'd had a fucking _blast_. Dancing hadn't given her that kind of rush in years. So she refused to explain and instead told everyone that Olivia had had a bug on her face.

 

It cost her a scholarship, but she had already decided that she was going to be a cop. Ballerinas couldn't stand up to anyone.

 

 

 

III. When she was twenty-one she stopped looking for camaraderie in her precinct. When she enrolled in the academy she hadn't done it to make friends. Her life had taught her pretty thoroughly that friends weren't really her strong suit. Well, Peralta was okay. He was an idiot, but he was an idiot who stood up for her whenever some jackhole was making cracks about her hardass demeanor or her gender or even her hair. So maybe she had one friend. But he was the exception, not the rule.

 

Because those jackholes were everywhere. If it had just been the woman thing, maybe she could've dealt with it. She could've done a few really badass things. Glared a lot. Earned their fear if not their respect. But she was also too angry. She was too loud. She was too violent. She was too this, too that, too... herself. It was like she was fifteen and she was losing a shot at principal dancer again and again and again because she refused to change who she was.

 

It all came to a head when her partner decided that her "hostile personality" was a clear signifier that she could take care of herself. If she was such a tough guy she "could probably watch her own back, right?" She would never, ever, even under threat of death admit it, but she really wanted to prove to someone that she was good at this. She needed to prove to herself that it wasn't all for nothing. Also, he was her superior.

 

So she started going to calls on her own. He would be on the clock, sipping coffee, driving the cruiser around and around, talking to one of his several girlfriends, and she would case empty buildings on her own. She would evict vagrants by herself. She would berate teenagers for jaywalking by herself. And one time, she even picked up a shoplifter by herself.

 

Except, that last one ended with an overnight hospital stay and a transfer to a new precinct when their captain found out what had been going on. Last she'd heard, her first partner was currently riding a desk in Yonkers.

 

 

 

IV. When she was twenty-seven she stopped looking for a permanent home. Growing up, Rosa had never liked living with other people. Her family was very loud and she always swore that she would one day have a studio apartment too small for more than one person. But that fantasy never included neighbors on literally every side of her who screamed and argued and vacuumed and practiced the cello at all hours.

 

When she was in middle school her childhood home was broken into. They hadn't taken much (her family hadn't had much to take) but that kind of experience doesn't leave you and she hadn't really felt safe in her home since. She moved every couple of years, always putting an alias on the lease.

 

She always assumed that eventually, the feeling would subside. Eventually, she would get tired of moving and stay in one place for more than twenty months. And in some ways, it did. She had learned how to shoot a gun and how to hide weapons on every part of her body. She had learned how to protect and defend herself. But the need to leave, to run never quite subsided.

 

Things in the nine-nine were different than her last precinct. She was with Jake again and had even... made other friends. She wouldn't tell them. But she would use her gun and her knives and she would protect them. She started signing longer leases, and when she did move it wasn't far.

 

 

 

V. When she was thirty-one she stopped looking for someone to share her life with. Things had fallen apart over and over again and she was done. It was like she was in her twenties walking a beat all by herself again. She had tried with Marcus, she had really genuinely tried, but she just couldn't bring herself to let him in all the way. She had cried on Gina's couch for three days before moving. If she moved after letting Terry in just once, she sure as hell wasn't staying in an apartment an ex had been to multiple times.

 

She did a lot of crying with Gina. After Tom. After Adrian. They all put on personas at work, but off the clock Rosa was softer and Gina was slightly less manic and they... got along. She certainly couldn't go to Amy for comfort. The woman would try too hard and it would be terrible for everyone. With Gina it was easy. They would put the X-Files on and Rosa would dissociate while Gina bedazzled things and hit **Yes, I'm Still Watching** every few hours. Easy.

 

After prison, no one questioned her when she dumped Pimento and swore off men. It was his shit advice that landed them there, and men, in general, hadn't given her too many great memories. In fact, it took several weeks after the break up for her to remember any good memories. She and Gina watched every upside of the Twilight Zone.

 

 

 

VI. When she was thirty-two she found Gina. Well, she didn't find her, exactly. Obviously. But she found something with her. It was a little over eight months after the trial and prison and Pimento and everything when Rosa finally realized. It was a nothing-special kind of night. She was eating leftovers and watching Stranger Things with Gina and-

 

She realized that the couch they were sitting on was the same one she had owned before The Thing. It was a couch she still owned because her friends had all chipped in to rent a storage unit for her and Jake.

 

She realized that they were watching a show her superior and mentor had recommended because he thought she might enjoy it. Because he liked her and respected her and when he spoke to her it was so rarely to berate.

 

She realized that she was even here right now because her team had worked so diligently to free her. To save her. Because they knew she was innocent and believed her worth rescuing and they were not the same when she wasn't there.

 

She realized they were together in her apartment for the sixth day that week.

 

Gina's head was in her lap and she was complaining about David Harbour's shitty TV police work but he could get away with it because of his dad-bod (whatever that meant) and Rosa just really wanted to kiss her. So, though she was sure Gina would crucify her for committing the unforgivable sin of interrupting her, Rosa leaned down and sealed her mouth over her best friend's.

 

It was way more awkward than Tobey Maguire made it look, and Gina froze without responding, which was definitely not supposed to happen. But instead of freaking out, the dancer just flipped over and crawled up Rosa's body like a panther before settling in the brunette's lap and linking her arms around Rosa's neck. "Fucking finally" was the only thing she said before locking their lips once more.

 

Finally indeed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This has been proofread exactly one (1) time and edited meh percent. Please feel free to point out errors and typos so I can correct them. But be nice ok I am a literal butterfly wing of a human


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